In any material handling industry, such as mail processing, there is always a need to “dump” a quantity of packages from a container, without damaging the packages, prior to further processing of the packages. For example, the United States Postal Service (USPS) is evaluating an Automatic Bundle Separation Unit (ABSU) to introduce mail bundles to an Automated Flats Sorting Machine Automatic Induction (AFSM-ai). The ABSU is composed of two subsystems: a container tilter (dumper) and a bundle separator.
Prior to separation, the bundles (e.g., flats, etc.) are loaded into a container (e.g., a hamper, wiretainer, pallet box, etc.) from an upstream process. An operator receives the loaded container and places the container into the container tilter, which is adjacent to the bundle separator. The container tilter then rotates the container, in the direction of the platform, in order to dump the bundles out of the open top of the container and onto the bundle separator. Immediately after the bundles fall onto the bundle separator, the initial separating process begins. After a series of separations along various conveyors, the bundles form a single file for downstream facility use.
These open-top containers suffer from several drawbacks. For example, the bundles tend to fall out of the container and onto the bundle separator before the container tilter has completed its full rotation. The height from which the bundles prematurely exit the container causes the bundles to strike the bundle separator with excessive force, which may cause the bundles to break apart or otherwise become damaged. Due to the inherently chaotic nature of this process, the number of bundles discharged out of the container is difficult to control. For example, a large number of bundles may fall on one specific area of the bundle separator, causing the lower bundles in the pile to become damaged. Once loosened or damaged, an operator must cull and/or reorganize these pieces, thereby reducing productivity and increasing the bundle separation processing time.